The Hindu : Sport : Chinese dominate at the Worlds

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 26, 2005

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Chinese dominate at the Worlds

Geet Sethi

Bahrain: The World under-21 snooker championship at the Al Juffair Dome here in Manama has reached the last four stage. After the early exit of Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta, the focus now shifts to the performances of Chinese cueists.

The Chinese contingent has performed with clinical precision and remarkable consistency. Three of the four semifinalists are from China.

Tian Pengfei, the fourth seed, defeated David Hogan, the fifth seed from Ireland, 6-3 in the best of 11 contest.

Whilst there were no notable breaks in the match, Pengfei exhibited great composure to convert a 0-2 deficit into a 6-3 victory.

Liang Wenbo, the second-ranked cueist sent by China, overcame fancied Gareth Coats of the UK 6-2 in what was a surprising result. Earlier, Wenbo had eliminated Matt Williams of the UK 5-4 in an engaging and tense encounter. The third Chinese player Li Hang was responsible for the early exit of Aled Brothers of Wales. While Li is the youngest of the three Chinese cueists with hardly any notable feats to his credit, he has provided evidence of possessing the potential to be a World-class player.

He has the rhythm and approach of a professional cueist. The challenge to the Chinese team will come from Robert Stephen of Scotland who defeated John Connors, the eighth seed from Ireland 6-4.

Stephens had earlier eliminated Pramul Jhantat of Thailand in the last 16 and India's Aditya Mehta in the last 32. Like most UK based cueists, Stephen plays his snooker with aggression and with gay abandon, which makes him lethal when he is in full flow.

At present he is enjoying a great run but still needs to quell the resistance from two Chinese opponents.

Semifinal line-up

In the World Seniors, New Zealand's Dene O'Kane, the top seed, will play Kuwait's Walid Hatim in the semifinal, while I will battle it out with Joe Delaney from Ireland in the best of 7 semifinal.

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